Free Republic

The U.S. manufacturing renaissance may have an invisible hand guiding it along: the energy sector, which is in the midst of its own breakneck expansion. The heavily chronicled shale boom that has propelled U.S. oil production to historical peaks also may be greasing the wheels of manufacturing, which suffered for years as production moved to cheaper havens overseas. Now, however, the once-beleaguered sector is expanding briskly. Last week the Institute for Supply Management reported that manufacturing activity expanded at its fastest pace in 30 months in November. While ISM does not break out energy-related manufacturing specifically, Brad Holcomb, chairman of...

Currently, the commercial 3D printing landscape is dominated by contraptions that create everything from toys to watchbands out of plastic. But there’s another manufacturing revolution in the making: metal 3D printing. Big companies like Rolls-Royce and GE are already working on using 3D printing to make metal parts for jet engines, but their machines have a startup cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars – not exactly within reach for the garage hobbyist. Now, engineers from Michigan Technological University in Houghton have rigged up their version of a 3D metal printer that can be made with less than $1,500 of...

The progress in 3-D printing has been nothing short of astounding over the last decade. The soaring stock prices of publicly traded 3-D printing companies 3D Systems (NYSE: DDD ) and Stratasys clearly illustrate the industry has made advances. Today, even consumers can get their hands on a plastic 3-D printer at a reasonable price -- an unheard-of possibility just five years ago. This phenomenal industry progress has led some to believe Moore's law applies to 3-D printing. Are they right? One inventor in Colorado disagrees. Moore's law? Not really At the Inside 3D Printing conference in Chicago this year,...

Calgary - Maker6 is a very different ballgame for 3D printing. This is an integrated service, including assistance with design and consumer-friendly services. It’s also a very interesting business approach, making 3D printing easily accessible. I was fortunate enough to get an interview with MacKenzie Brown, CEO of maker6 and its related CAD design company, CAD Crowd. I was extremely interested in what looked to me to be a very effective way of managing 3D printing across a very wide range of commercial and consumer needs. I don’t need to do a lot of talking here. I was lucky enough...

Taiwan-based Foxconn Group will invest US$40 million in Pennsylvania, the US, over two years, according to group president Terry Guo. The investment is in line with the US government's Advanced Manufacturing in America policy, Guo said. Foxconn will invest US$30 million in Foxconn East America, a subsidiary based in Harrisburg, to expand an existing R&D team to set up an advanced manufacturing facility for high value-added products for applications including automobiles, medical care and environmental production, Guo said. The expansion will recruit about 500 employees. In addition, Foxconn will invest US$10 million in Carnegie Melon University in Pittsburgh specifically for...

In mid-2013 3D printing technology fell into the media spotlight, after a number of 'printed' guns were made - not only were they able to fire live rounds, but being made of plastic meant they were also undetectable. However, the potential for 3D printing to change the face of the SME for the better - despite the bad press initially - is now being recognized more than ever. 3D printing is not a 'new' technology, but has become more affordable and accessible in recent years, meaning more companies are looking at the technique as a realistic, cost-effective solution. There's no...

Our economy is straining at the bit to grow out of the Great Recession. You wouldn’t know that from the dreary news on both the jobs and GDP growth front. The good news is found in the incredible potential for high-paying jobs, growth and wealth creation bubbling up in America’s manufacturing sector. Manufacturing is hot, even though we’re supposed to be in a post-industrial economy. The transformation in American manufacturing today is redolent of a century ago when innovation and growth in the industrial landscape was blossoming in both big companies and start-ups. On today’s start-up front we have emerging...

3D printing has been making waves in the manufacturing arena which is touted as the next big thing to revolutionise consumerism and product development. Just as e-commerce has removed the boundaries for marketing and brought the consumers and producers closer, 3D printing is expected to enlarge the market for producers by removing the shackles of production volumes, minimising the time to market and customising the product as per individual customer needs and all of this at affordable costs. In the early days of product creation, nuts, screws and hinges were individually hand-crafted for a very long time until the industrialisation...

Shares of Boeing (BA) climbed into the green early Monday after the jet maker unveiled fresh orders for its upcoming 777x and struck a new supply deal with a major firm in the United Arab Emirates. The Chicago-based Dreamliner maker racked up roughly $100 billion in orders with Middle Eastern carriers on the first day of the 2013 Dubai Airshow. The 342 orders in the fast-growing market doubled those awarded to rival Airbus.

SEATTLE (AP) — Boeing's history in the Pacific Northwest dates back more than a century, when William Boeing purchased a Seattle shipyard that would become his first airplane factory. In recent years, however, those ties have been fraying, first with the company shifting its headquarters to Chicago, then with the development of a new production line in South Carolina. Now, the relationship between Boeing and Washington state is near the point of unraveling after a fiery debate among machinists this week led the workers to reject a long-term contract. On Thursday, Boeing made good on its threats and said it...

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) leadership had negotiated a new contract with Boeing that would have taken effect in 2016. The deal called for cuts in wage increases for union members, reduced health care benefits and lower company contributions to its defined benefit retirement plan. Some 67% of IAM members voted to reject the deal, and the union local president said that members had “preserved something sacred by rejecting the Boeing proposal. We’ve held on to our pensions and that’s big. At a time when financial planners are talking about a ‘retirement crisis’ in America, we...

This will probably come as no surprise to those who watched the federal government stepping in to help unions strongarm manufacturers in the last few years, but Boeing is back in the news with more labor issues. The aerospace giant is getting ready to unveil their newest jet – the 777X – which had been widely expected to be built in the Seattle area as so many of their other lines have been. But at the last minute, the unions decided the deal wasn’t fat enough for their tastes. Boeing workers’ rejection of a new labour deal has sent the...

Members of the Machinists union vote today on a contract with Boeing that the aircraft maker says will determine whether it will build the next generation of its 777 jets at its Seattle manufacturing hub. About 20,000 jobs at Boeing and its suppliers are riding on the decision of where to build the 777X, which is set to become a key part of its fleet. Also at stake is the Machinsts' pension plan, which will be converted into a 401(k) type of retirement program if the contract is approved. That change has sparked anger among Boeing workers, and raised the...

A dramatic showdown is underway in the State of Washington, pitting Boeing against its largest labor union, the International Association of Machinists (IAM). If the union, voting Wednesday, rejects a proposed contract that includes lower health care benefits, Boeing is threatening to move production of its next generation airliner, the 777X, out of the Puget Sound region, to such locations as Charleston, SC (where it is assembling the new 787) or Texas, right-to-work states where the union's demands would hold no sway. The Washington State Legislature takes Boeing's threats very seriously, indeed. Boeing has long complained about the tax burden...

Could 3D printing help solve the world's shelter crises? At a TED talk in Ojai, Calif., Behrokh Khoshnevis, director of the Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at the University of Southern California, said nearly 1 billion people in the world don’t have access to adequate shelter, a situation that breeds poverty, disease, illiteracy, crime and overpopulation. To address this problem, Khoshnevis is developing a process called Contour Crafting to use 3D printing technology to build entire houses. Khoshnevis said the giant 3D printers his team is developing can build a 2,500-square-foot house in as little as 20 hours. The Contour Crafting...

Conventional wisdom holds that America’s transition from a manufacturing to a service-based economy is nearly complete. Mining and making stuff are out; surgery and software development are in. The U.S. has entered a post-industrial era. Not so fast, says Vaclav Smil. In his new book, Made in the U.S.A.: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing, Smil argues persuasively that manufacturing matters as much in the current century as it did in the last—and that a revitalized manufacturing sector is vital for restoring growth, jobs, and American social dynamism. Technology creates efficiency, Smil writes. But, as he shows, efficiency confuses...

The biggest breakthroughs in how we make things lie not in the technology to manipulate materials but in the materials themselves. Such is the thinking behind “4-D printing,” an experimental approach to manufacturing that expands on much-hyped 3-D printing processes. Instead of building static three-dimensional items from layers of plastics or metals, 4-D printing employs dynamic materials that continue to evolve in response to their environment. This new wrinkle in the maker movement comes courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Self-Assembly Lab, where director Skylar Tibbits and his team are experimenting with so-called “programmable materials.” The researchers print these...

BAYONNE, NEW JERSEY – Henry Repeating Arms, the leading lever action rifle manufacturer headquartered in Bayonne, N.J., will begin manufacturing their steel centerfire rifles in their Rice Lake, Wisconsin facility in 2014. To date the Wisconsin plant has supplied the Bayonne operation with many components used in all Henry models including receivers, bolts, sights and other internal parts. Several million dollars of new computerized machining equipment was invested in the Wisconsin facility to support the manufacturing of the company’s caliber .30-30 and .45-70 rifles and to increase the volume of the components produced for its rimfire rifles. Henry Repeating Arms...

When New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the SAFE Act in January—what he referred to as “common sense” gun-control legislation—the law not only turned many law-abiding citizens into criminals, it also drove businesses and jobs out of the state. With a move to South Carolina, American Tactical Imports has become the third firearm company to relocate its operations from New York to more gun-friendly states. According to Guns.com: ATI is largely an importer and distributor of domestic firearms, although they do some manufacturing. They plan to move from Rochester to Summerville, a city on the outskirts of Charleston, starting next...

A Rochester-based company that makes firearms, ammunition and tactical equipment is relocating its headquarters in Dorchester County, South Carolina officials announced Monday. The state Department of Commerce said that the $2.7 million investment by American Tactical Imports, currently located on Airpark Drive, would mean more than 100 new jobs for the Summerville area.